Damned by Blood
The Faustin Brothers series, Book 3
Evie Byrne
Dedication
To J.W.
Chapter One
Mikhail kicked in the door of apartment 501. The chains and bolts securing it tore from the frame with a clatter. Kobryn bolted for the window. It didn’t matter where he ran, because Mikhail had a man on the fire escape, another on the roof, one on the ground and one in the hall to intercept the neighbors. He caught Kobryn before he made the window—caught him by the hair, spun him around, and shoved a polished steel spike through the hollow of his jaw and into his brain.
“This one’s alive.”
Mikhail let the body fall and went to his brother, who crouched over a human female sprawled face down on the blackened floor of the kitchenette. A male, obviously dead, slumped in the corner behind her. By the smell, other bodies rotted in the apartment, or had recently. It was a wonder the neighbors hadn’t called the police yet.
He flicked on his radio and called his men. “It’s done. Omar, I want you to take his body to 313. Daniel, come in for clean up. There’s two, maybe more.”
“Jesus, why do they all have to live this way?” Gregor said. Under his breath he added, “Fuck me if she’s sixteen.”
Mikhail gave a half shrug as he knelt down by his brother. Kobryn was trash. This is what trash did. If Gregor could still be shocked, he hadn’t spent enough time patrolling.
The girl had long, magenta-streaked hair. Tattoos covered her skinny arms. Examining her, he found plenty of scratches and bruises, but only two bite marks—one below the ear, the other on her inner thigh. Her pulse told him she’d live. Mikhail scowled. Survivors caused complications.
Gregor said, “Do you want me to take her to the clinic?”
At the clinic, his people would give her some plasma, treat her wounds and distort her memories so she never could say exactly what happened to her. Memory wipes were expensive, time consuming, and in his opinion, made the survivors victims twice over. Mikhail turned over her pale hand and examined her broken, dirty nails. She was a street kid, the kind no one would listen to if she started talking about vampyr. The city hospital would rehydrate her and drop her back on the streets. With her memory intact, she might learn to be more cautious. He drew one of his knives.
“We’ll give her back to her own kind.”
Pressing her to the ground to be sure she didn’t move, he obscured the puncture wounds with a few quick slashes. She didn’t even moan.
Daniel and Omar arrived to secure the scene. Mikhail told Omar to go to a payphone, call 911, and leave the girl next to the phone. Gregor gave him a look. It wasn’t quite a challenge—but he was definitely questioning his judgment.
“You’re too sentimental about them,” Mikhail said. His phone rang. He answered it, narrowing his eyes at Gregor as he did. No matter what Gregor thought, they’d leave as soon as he hung up. He was too busy to babysit foolish humans.
It was his father. His father who never picked up a phone. “Come to the hall as soon as you can.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. No emergency. Is Gregor with you?”
Mikhail frowned at this vagueness. “Yes.”
“Bring him, too.” The line went dead.
Faustin family business played out in two places—the hall and the house. The house being the brownstone where Mikhail and his brothers had grown up. If his parents called a meeting there, the subject was likely to concern only the immediate family. The hall was their place of business, a basement bakery their father had transformed into a wood- paneled, antique-stuffed sanctuary back during Prohibition using funds he’d hijacked from bootleggers. Back in those days, the hall could have doubled as an elegant speakeasy, and in some ways it was one. It served a very exclusive group of East coast vampyr.
A meeting at the hall meant the business was public, something to be deliberated by the council. But his father had retired two years ago. If anyone were to call a meeting in the hall, it should be Mikhail himself.
Gregor called their other brother, Alex, and learned he and his wife had been summoned too, as had Gregor’s wife, but none of them knew anything. Something extraordinary had happened, and all Mikhail could imagine as he and Gregor sped uptown were the grimmest of scenarios. Their consortium with Europe had collapsed. Their brokers had bilked them.
They made it to the hall fast, descending beneath the street, sweeping past the defensive rings of both personnel and magic protecting their sanctuary from intruders, making their way to the heart of the building—the library. Mikhail pushed open the doors and strode straight to his father, who waited there with his back to the fireplace. They burned a fire all year round in the library, because the room was damp, and vampires could never be too warm.
“Well? What is it?”
His father said, “We wait for Alexander and Helena.”
“You can tell me something.”
“No.”
They locked eyes and tested wills—the old knyaz versus the young one. His father had diminished some in retirement, but he was still formidable. Mikhail was stronger than ever, but not strong enough—not quite yet—to stare down the old prince.
“Soon enough, you will know.”
Mikhail’s mother arrived next, along with Gregor’s wife, Madelena. His mother, who usually dressed in kimonos and fringed shawls, wore the smart black suit that she only pulled out for funerals and meetings with lawyers. It showed off her legs, legs which once made men weep in the cabarets of Weimar Berlin. It was not a good sign that she’d put it on. She offered him a worried smile and gave him a dry kiss on the cheek.
He was beginning to get annoyed.
Madelena hugged him. No one else in the world hugged him, but he tolerated it from her, perhaps because so much of his own blood ran in her veins. She’d been converted from her human state via massive transfusions of Faustin family blood––including his own––making her one of the strongest converts in recent memory. Not that she seemed to notice, since she spent all her time sitting at home, writing science fiction.
“Big drama, huh?” she said.
Gregor had poured himself a scotch and found a comfortable chair. There was something to be said for his pragmatism, but Mikhail wanted to keep a clear head.
“Alex,” Gregor said. He didn’t have to say more. Everyone sighed in agreement. Alex was always late.
Madelena went to perch on the arm of her husband’s chair. “Give them a break. I don’t think those two have left bed for days.” She grinned at him. “They’re loopy. You remember how it was.”
“Yeah, I’m going all mushy just thinking about it,” Gregor said, throwing back his drink. But Madelena kept grinning at him until he cracked a smile, and they shared a look so full of private communication that Mikhail had to turn away.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and scrolled through his text messages, trying to ignore their...whatever it was. Happiness? As much has he’d approved of his two younger brothers marrying and settling down, he found he could do without all of the preciousness of the newly bonded.
Though he’d always been solitary, he’d never realized how different he was until he watched his brothers fall in love. He couldn’t imagine sharing his life with another person. The thought was as alien and repulsive as the prospect of growing an extra limb. Besides, he had nothing to give a wife. Nothing inside.
Perhaps that was why he was born to be knyaz. Living like a monk, he could devote himself entirely to the work of protecting and leading the East coast families.
Not only was he unfit to marry, he had no compelling reason to marry. His brothers would breed, and he’d make one of their boys his heir. He’d take the child into training as soon as it was biddable. True, it was irregular for a prince to have no children, but not unheard of. If Gregor and Madelena couldn’t have children, he’d take one of Alex’s sons. Now that Helena had finally decided to convert, he suspected it wouldn’t be long until she was pregnant.